TOPIC: Being prepared with Survival Instinct UK

My favourite survival film is 'Powerless' set in west Wales and is about a family of brothers and sisters who move there from London after their father was murdered. Shortly before New Year's Eve their mother goes on a trip and then their older brother turns up with a friend. Then there is a terrorist attack on London and all power is switched off in Britain. The siblings are then forced to get along together instead of hiding in their bedrooms. Fortunately they have tins and packets of food stored and also a wood burning stove with a pile of firewood.

that sounds like so many teenage dystopia novels i've read! in a good way.

And how hard can it be to get hazelnuts off a few country squirrels? City squirrels maybe

Actually Mr Lorac, the SHTF thingy is exactly the reason why research into packet switching was funded, to maintain communications by re-routing in the event of a communications hub being taken out by enemy action. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

I needed to learn all that stuff back in the day when the internet was still being referred to as The Information Superhighway.

I think you're onto something with those squirrels Mr Lorac, Imagine using a squadron of trained squirrels as nut and berry collectors, half a dozen of them little buggers could gather cwt of nuts per day easy! To be eaten or traded for other foods, weapons, booze, women etc. They could double up as tree top sentries to give early warning of marauding hungry preppers who'd forgotton their can openers.

livestock really could be the way to go. depends on the SHTF scenario. if the basic infrastructure of land, crop, grass and the like is still good then they can still graze and you can still cut hay for winter fodder. obviously the more animals you have the more work there is. plus the whole non-preppers/zombies trying to nick em to eat em, so you'd need a good guard pig or two. if the SHTF part 2 occurs (you just ain't prepped enough) then a cow or a horse makes more of a meal than a cat. you'll need big animals to plow the ground in yer new post SHTF world, for growing crops. sheep are a bit useless in that respect, but more hardy in bad weather. the trouble with sheep is you do need to shear them. the good news with that is warm fleeces to bury under in winter. or even spin into wool for clothes. long term thinking. though again depends if the shopping centres are still standing, cos you could probably forage though old marks and spencers for a good few years.

Prepper survivalists tend to be right wing reactionaries often fundamentalist Christians who put humans above other animal species forgetting that the higher up the food chain you are the more you rely upon other animal species. Animals are useful for not just eating but protection, company, warmth, transport, milk, eggs, manure and being aware of natural disasters. The prepper survivalists want to eat anything that moves which is about using up your capital.

I was thinking that if you were in a self contained secret prepper community cabin fever would soon set in and make you feel suicidal or homicidal. Unless you were totally self sufficient, multi skilled and a loner the SHTF scenario won't be much fun.

To say that the SHTF scenario isn't fun for anybody wildly understates the case.

The evidence of experience suggests that, for example, growing a significant portion of your daily bread,
without farm machinery and agrochemicals is very challenging indeed, especially if you have to save all your own seed.

Individual self sufficiency is a total myth except at the lowest level of the merest miserable bare survival,
and even then only if you are very lucky. If you think just how totally dependent we all are
on a multitude of other people to underwrite even a modest low impact lifestyle it is obvious
that the hyper individualist survivalist mindset is totally deluded and fundamentally embedded in hatred of other people.

Individual self sufficiency is a total myth except at the lowest level of the merest miserable bare survival, and even then only if you are very lucky. If you think just how totally dependent we all are on a multitude of other people to underwrite even a modest low impact lifestyle it is obvious that the hyper individualist survivalist mindset is totally deluded and fundamentally embedded in hatred of other people.

Yet at the same time keeping those around him even closer to them and restricting their comings and goings. When cabin fever sets in then they are blamed not the survivalist or the situation. Imagine being in an extremist's camp. As soon as you step out of line he would either throw you out or shoot you and mostly likely the later as he would be paranoid about getting killed by any ejects.

aka Edith of Clang and The Edith Islands(come for a paddle ,the water's lovely at this time of year)

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Digital-Vegetation wrote:

Mr.E.C.R.Lorac wrote:

There won't be any google to google the preppers on though DV

And how hard can it be to get hazelnuts off a few country squirrels? City squirrels maybe

Actually Mr Lorac, the SHTF thingy is exactly the reason why research into packet switching was funded, to maintain communications by re-routing in the event of a communications hub being taken out by enemy action. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

I needed to learn all that stuff back in the day when the internet was still being referred to as The Information Superhighway.

I think you're onto something with those squirrels Mr Lorac, Imagine using a squadron of trained squirrels as nut and berry collectors, half a dozen of them little buggers could gather cwt of nuts per day easy! To be eaten or traded for other foods, weapons, booze, women etc. They could double up as tree top sentries to give early warning of marauding hungry preppers who'd forgotton their can openers.

I can't pretend to have understood a word of that wiki page DV,not the techie bits any way.But the gist is that if one packet gets blown up another packet somewhere else takes over yes?

I was thinking more along the lines the notion that if supermarkets have no more than three days supply,afet a few days there'd be no more packets of Internet on the shelves,especially with panic buying.

I shall start the squirrel training program straight away,I'm taking no chances.
I shall be King of the Nuts the day after the SHTF.

If there's one thing we can all agree on it's that we can all agree to disagree about the one thing we all agree on...

earth is doomed. a giant all extinguishing killer asteroid is on the way, only 13 days to go. its a comedy roadtrip film. its got some preppers in it! but is mostly about the stupidity of modern life.

anyhoo i've been thinking about this whole prepping malarky and i'm thinking of buying a castle. one with turrets and a well, an a big fuckin solid wall around it and a moat. a proper old castle was well set up for seiges so oughta keep the zombie hoards out. if i can find a white wizard to help out, so much the better.